http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-16/us-amphibious-assault-ship-kearsarge-and-26th-marine-unit-visit-israel
( Imminent Israel / US attack on Assad Regime ? )
US Amphibious Assault Ship "Kearsarge" And 26th Marine Unit "Visit" Israel
Two weeks ago, when we reported on the news of yet another aerial assault by Israel on Syria, we said that "while speculation a US-led escalation is ripe, the lack of any US naval support (as shown by Stratfor's naval update map from May 2) off the coast of Syria likely makes any immediate war is hardly likely, or that Israel will be on its own for at least the foreseeable future." Today this is no longer the case, following news that the US amphibious assult ship, LHD 3 and its cargo of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, have arrived in Eilat, Israel for a "reguarly scheduled post visit." Amusingly, the US Navy was very quick to point out that "This visit is not associated with, nor a reaction to, any world events." Just purely accidental then.
From the Navy's website:
The multi-purpose amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), along with embarked Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU) arrived in Eilat, Israel for a regularly scheduled port visit, May 14.
While in port, the officers, Sailors and Marines will meet with local officials, participate in community engagement projects and experience the rich history and culture of the region.This visit is not associated with, nor a reaction to, any world events.Kearsarge is the flagship of the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group (ARG), which includes the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall (LSD 50) and the amphibious transport dock ship USS San Antonio (LPD 17). Along with the embarked Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU), the Kearsarge ARG is deployed in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility (AOR).
So while the US Marines are now just right next to Syria, so US presence in the East China sea is also increasing as GlobocCop gets restless. From Stratfor:
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/05/15/israel-threatens-more-syria-attacks-warns-assad-not-to-retaliate/
Israel Threatens More Syria Attacks, Warns Assad Not to Retaliate
Israel Will Impose Regime Change If Assad Doesn't Accept Attacks
by Jason Ditz, May 15, 2013
Israeli officials have issued a bizarre statement today regarding their intentions to continue attacking Syria in the near future, warning Syrian President Bashar Assad that he’d better just lie down and accept it.
The statement, made by an unnamed “senior” official, said Israel was determined to continue its strikes, and that if Assad dared to retaliate for any of the attacks “he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”
President Assad has faced much internal criticism for not responded to this month’s previous Israeli attacks, and has fought off those complaints with statements threatening to eventually attack Israel in response, but at a time of his own choosing.
Though Israel often openly talks about attacking its neighbors, and indeed often follows through with those attacks, it is unprecedented for them to preface the attack by threatening more attacks if the target retaliates.
The threatening regime change, however, may be a blunder on Israel’s part, as it will surely be used by the Assad government in the days and weeks to come as evidence that Israel is secretly backing the al-Qaeda-endorsed rebellion, a charge the rebels desperately want to avoid.
http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/2013/05/israel-tells-russia-they-will-wipe-out-syria-if-assad-attacks-2455024.html
An Israeli official confirmed Wednesday night that a dramatic and unprecedented message to this effect had been conveyed to Damascus, Channel 2 news reported.
The report said that Israel’s position to this effect also came up during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency meeting in Russia on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin, during which Netanyahu also told Putin of Israel’s profound opposition to Russia’s sale of sophisticated S-300 missile defense batteries to Assad.
The warning came hours after mortar shells hit the Mount Hermon areafor the first time in the two-year Syrian civil war, and as Arabic newspapers reported talk of Hezbollah opening “a new front” against Israel on the Golan Heights.
Syria vowed last week to respond “immediately and harshly” to any further Israeli airstrikes, after Israel carried out two early morning attacks earlier this month on weapons consignments being stored in and around Damascus en route from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The shipments contained highly sophisticated Fateh-110 missiles.
Confirmation of Israel’s warning to Assad came soon after the New York Times quoted an Israeli official issuing the same threat. The New York Times said Israel was “considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants,” and that an unnamed Israeli official had contacted the paper to warn: “Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah. The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region. If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies, he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”
“Israel will continue its policy of interdicting attempts to strengthen Hezbollah, but will not intercede in the Syrian civil war as long as Assad desists from direct or indirect attacks against Israel.”
The New York Times report speculated that Israel “could be trying to restrain Syria’s behavior without undertaking further military action, or alerting the international community to another strike. That would ratchet up the tension in an already fraught situation in Syria, where a civil war has been raging for more than two years.”
Channel 2 on Wednesday night showed satellite images of what it said was a surgical strike, reportedly carried out by Israel at Damascus airport to target the Iranian missile consignments. It showed before and after pictures of specific buildings that had been blown up, while neighboring buildings remained intact. Israel has not formally confirmed either of this month’s attacks.
Channel 2 said Netanyahu had made clear to Putin — as he also had in recent conversations with US President Barack Obama and the Chinese leadership — that Israel would hold to its “red lines” as related to Syria, which included preventing the transfer of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah and other rogue organizations. source – Times Of Israel
The post Israel Tells Russia They Will Wipe Out Syria If Assad Attacks appeared first on Now The End Begins.WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 2013
Attacking Iran’s Nuclear Sites Would be Sheer Madness
By Claude Salhani, journalist, author and political analyst based in Beirut, specializing in the Middle East, politicized Islam and terrorism. He is also the former editor of the Middle East Times and. C the former International Editor with United Press International and also ran UPI’s Terrorism & Security Desks. Cross posted from OilPrice
A timely article by Wade Stone for Global Research examines what would happen to the oil producing nations of the Gulf in the event that Israel would target Iran’s nuclear reactors and facilities; the reply and the scenario given is nothing short of a nightmare. Most, if not all, the cities in the region of the Arabian Gulf – Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City, Riyadh and others – would become uninhabitable for decades to come.
The article provides a good study of the ensuing catastrophe that would result. Though frightening as it is, the article looks at the issue mostly from a technical perspective and does not convey enough the hellish reality of the immediate panic that would befall the region and indeed the world, given the repercussions resulting from the inter-dependency of nations today.
In the event of an attack by Israel on the Iranian sites at Bushehr, Natanz, Arak and Isfahan in order to prevent the Islamic Republic’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, and if the fallout was to hit certain weather conditions prevalent in the Gulf region the result is that nearly the entire region would become uninhabitable for decades to come. And says the author, the disaster would not be limited to the region, but depending on the weather pattern, the fallout may very well hit Israel and even Turkey.
Much of what would happen depends largely on the climatic conditions at the time of the attacks. Great desert storms known as the shamal and the sharqi, sweep down and blankets the entire region and would bring with it contaminated sand particles.
If you saw one of the Mission Impossible movies where Tom Cruise chases one of the bad guys through the streets of Dubai as a monstrous sand storm blows in, then you may have a better idea of what these storms refer to. Now imagine that same sand storm blow through the region only this time each little particle of sand contaminated by nuclear fallout. A single particle is all that is needed to contaminate a human being.
The author of the article states that the storm travels in a semi-circular route, at a speed of 30 to 300 kilometers through the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In other words the major oil producing centers as well as a large number of refineries would become contaminated.
Aside from the ecological disaster of which there would be no precedent, there is also the human aspect of the tragedy. And then the economic fallout as oil production from the region would plummet overnight.
Think of the disaster that such an impact would have on the price of oil if suddenly more than 17 million barrels per day comprising the joint production form Saudi Arabia (10 million bbl/d), the UAE (3.087 million bbl/pd) Qatar (1.63 million bbl/pd) and Bahrain (44,800 bbl/pd). Not to mention the oil from Iraq and Iran, that would plunge the world into one of the greatest crisis ever experienced.
Consider the consequences: the first tier would be ground zero, the immediate areas affected by the fall out. Here there would be sheer hysteria and pandemonium on a biblical scale as that area would witness a mass exodus by hundreds of thousands of residents, foreign and nationals, all trying to get out of the contaminated area as people in total panic would end up fighting each other for the last seats on airplanes out of the region.
Then imagine if you will the insanity as those who failed to secure air travel would get in their cars and start driving west.
The second tier of trouble would immediately be felt as an unprecedented oil shortage would create havoc on the world markets and stock exchanges. Wall Street, the FT100 and other international markets would crash, companies would collapse overnight.
The third tier of disaster would come from countries slightly removed from the front-line states as the after effects begin to settle in.
In terms of damages, said the author of the report “Think of the nuclear accident at Fukushima” in Japan says the author, “and multiply it by ten.” Fukushima was unquestionably the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date, surpassing Chernobyl in Ukraine, where the death from cancer reached a million.
“Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities would leave the entire Gulf State region virtually uninhabitable,” writes Stone.
Okay, those in favor of military action by Israel and/or the United States on Iran’s nuclear facilities may argue that this is a worst case scenario and that any strike by Israel would be “surgical and tactical and precise.” And they may well be right. But even a best-case scenario where minimum nuclear waste is released into the atmosphere and claims that the heat from the fires caused by the bombing would incinerate all nuclear particles, there would still be some contamination.
So after all perhaps the great cities of the region would not become uninhabitable as imagined by one writer. Indeed, it may be hyped in order to grab readers’ attention. Maybe in the best case scenario there would be “minimum collateral damage” where “only” a million or so people would die over the span of a decade from cancers brought about by the attacks. What was it that Josef Stalin used to say about killing a million people? “It’s only a statistic.
http://www.voanews.com/content/iaea-no-breakthrough-in-iran-nuclear-talks/1661851.html
IAEA: No Breakthrough in Iran Nuclear Talks
The United Nations' top nuclear inspector, Herman Nackaerts, says talks with Iran have ended with no agreement and no date set for new talks.
This was the 10th round of talks since the beginning of the year between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. U.N. inspectors want access to Iranian nuclear facilities and documents.
The IAEA is concerned Iran may be building a nuclear weapon and wants to visit such places as the Parchin military site.
Iran says Parchin is a standard military facility and insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, held separate talks in Istanbul Wednesday with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Their talks are focused on the possibility of another round of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.
Those nations are pushing for Iran to stop some of its uranium enrichment activity, while Iran demands they recognize its right to enrich uranium.
The U.N. Security Council has passed multiple rounds of sanctions against Iran related to its nuclear program. The United States and other Western nations have enacted their own sanctions, including those targeting Iran's key oil exports.
The U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday imposed sanctions on a trading company and an exchange house in the United Arab Emirates for dealing with a blacklisted Iranian bank. Treasury also announced it is banning gold sales to Iran starting July 1. The ban is part of the U.S. effort to weaken the Iranian currency and isolate Iran from the global financial system.
This was the 10th round of talks since the beginning of the year between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. U.N. inspectors want access to Iranian nuclear facilities and documents.
The IAEA is concerned Iran may be building a nuclear weapon and wants to visit such places as the Parchin military site.
Iran says Parchin is a standard military facility and insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, held separate talks in Istanbul Wednesday with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. Their talks are focused on the possibility of another round of negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.
Those nations are pushing for Iran to stop some of its uranium enrichment activity, while Iran demands they recognize its right to enrich uranium.
The U.N. Security Council has passed multiple rounds of sanctions against Iran related to its nuclear program. The United States and other Western nations have enacted their own sanctions, including those targeting Iran's key oil exports.
The U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday imposed sanctions on a trading company and an exchange house in the United Arab Emirates for dealing with a blacklisted Iranian bank. Treasury also announced it is banning gold sales to Iran starting July 1. The ban is part of the U.S. effort to weaken the Iranian currency and isolate Iran from the global financial system.
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